Professors in Colorado Recieve Death Threats for Teaching Evolution

I'm glad to see that the off topic debate has stopped (i'm assuming the one post on that topic since my last was an honest mistake).

But where did everybody go? We can still post in this thread on topic... if we like. Just a thought.

Yeah, it looks like people care more about the evolution v creation debate than they do extremists threatening death over it.

Go figure

IT's always the converts that are the most mentally unstable.

I find it incredible that we haven't left the dark ages. People are still being pursecuted for teaching the facts. These teachers should be honored not threatened.

Fundamentalist threat not an isolated event
Jennifer Platte, for the editorial board
Friday, July 20, 2007

The packages containing veiled threats that were slipped under the doors of labs at the department of evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado appear to be part of a larger campaign being waged by one man against the department.

....

He appears to have been inspired by the words of Pastor Jerry Gibson, who allegedly spoke at Doug White's New Day Covenant Church in Boulder, saying that "every true Christian should be ready and willing to take up arms to kill the enemies of Christian society."

...

However, this writer may be seen as a representative of a very credible menace emerging in America. His actions in our city eerily mirror those of three people at the July 12 assembly of the Senate, in which the opening prayer, given by Hindu Chaplain Rajan Zed, was overridden and disrupted by shouts emerging from the public gallery.

www.dailycamera.com...

Interesting read.

So it's not just attacks on science, but also a clear lack of respect for other faiths.

[edit on 22-7-2007 by melatonin]

There have been multiple threats and attacks of this sort within the US from extremist Christian groups spanning from threats, fires and bombings of abortion clinics to threats against teachers and scientists. It seems like a steady threat in the US. And seemingly a much more prevalent threat than the Muslim extremism we read and hear about in the news.

As a matter of fact, I'm hard pressed to find an actual terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslims within US borders, but multiple threats and terrorists attacks made by Christians.

Originally posted by theindependentjournal
There are even some people that subscribe to both theories, that is to say God created it and let evolution carry it out, I don't buy this cause my God aint so cruel or stupid that he can't get it right the first time...

According to the bible God didn't get it right the first time. That's why he sent the flood to kill everyone but Noah and his family. That's also why there is an Old Testament and a New Testament. Don't you think that if he had got it right the first time he would not have had to kill everyone and start over or there would not have been the need for a New Testament?

Speaking of cruel or stupid. Don't you think that drowning the entire human race is cruel? What about the genocide that the Israelites commited in the name of God? Doesn't killing all of the adult males of a population and taking the women and children as slaves to be raped and brutalized count as cruelty?

Originally posted by Rahul Buttar
That's why he sent the flood to kill everyone but Noah and his family. That's also why there is an Old Testament and a New Testament. Don't you think that if he had got it right the first time he would not have had to kill everyone and start over or there would not have been the need for a New Testament?

Technically, the NT is because of Jesus, not Noah. Noah's story goes way back to Genesis, and there are quite a number of books of "history" in the OT after Noah's story.

But otherwise, I agree with you. The god of the Old Testament is a ravening, blood-thirsty, mysogynistic, genocidal figment of someone's imagination.

Whoever we are
Wherever were from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb
And if our chances
Expect to improve
Its gonna take a lot more
Than tryin to remove
The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether

They call it the earth
Which is a dumb kinda name
But they named it right
cause we behave the same...
We are dumb all over
Dumb all over,
Yes we are
Dumb all over,
Near n far
Dumb all over,
Black n white
People, we is not wrapped tight

Nurds on the left
Nurds on the right
Religous fanatics
On the air every night
Sayin the bible
Tells the story
Makes the details
Sound real gory
bout what to do
If the geeks over there
Dont believe in the book
We got over here

You cant run a race
Without no feet
n pretty soon
There wont be no street
For dummies to jog on
Or doggies to dog on
Religous fanatics
Can make it be all gone
(I mean it wont blow up
n disappear
Itll just look ugly
For a thousand years...)

You cant run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great
While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state

To arms! to arms!
Hooray! thats great
Two legs aint bad
Unless theres a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in
For souvenirs: two ears (get down!)
Not his, not hers, (but what the hey? )
The good book says:
(it gotta be that way!)
But their book says:
Revenge the crusades...
With whips n chains
n hand grenades...
Two arms? two arms?
Have another and another
Our God says:
There aint no other!
Our God says
Its all okay!
Our God says
This is the way!

It says in the book:
Burn n destroy...
n repent, n redeem
n revenge, n deploy
n rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
cause they dont go for whats in the book
n that makes em bad
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down
Or rent a nice french bomb
To poof them out of existance
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise our god
(cause he can really take care of business!)

And when his humble tv servant
With humble white hair
And humble glasses
And a nice brown suit
And maybe a blond wife who takes phone calls
Tells us our God says
Its okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
cause if we dont do it,
We aint gwine up to hebbin!
(depending on which book youre using at the
Time...cant use theirs... it dont work
...its all lies...gotta use mine...)
Aint that right?
Thats what they say
Every night...
Every day...
Hey, we cant really be dumb
If were just following gods orders
Hey, lets get serious...
God knows what hes doin
He wrote this book here
An the book says:
He made us all to be just like him,
So...
If were dumb...
Then God is dumb...
(an maybe even a little ugly on the side)

"Frank Zappa 1981 You Are What You Is"

[edit on 23-7-2007 by MonkeyCitizen]

It seems to me that the govt censorship and the effect of all that fluoride in the drinking water has dumbed down the posters on this debate. if we are talking about evolution, I assume that we are talking about humans. go to www.theyfly.com... and find out that we did not originate from ape, (is it not obvious that in 10 million years a chimp will still be a chimp and nowhere resemböle a german traffic cop?) We are not of this planet, and when we did finally settle 220,000 years ago, we interbred with early man, evolving at that time. Sol 3s humans come from many different star systems. The Universe is teeming with intelligent life. http:/www.enterprisemission.com for the inelligent artifacts on Mars. As regards creationists, they are also wrong. Each of us carries a spirit form, consciousness, biophysical field, call it what you may, and that is connected to 'creation' not to a god. see Talmud Jmmanuel by Billy Meier. So IMHO, both teachings are a load of bollocks, pushed either by narrow minded mainstream scientists or members of human worshipping, superstitious mind control cults. Why teach theory or fantasy, is there not enough misinformation already?

[edit on 23-7-2007 by ThomasT]

[edit on 23-7-2007 by ThomasT]

Thomas, since you're basing your observation on the Billy Meier case, I'll start by saying that BM's story has been shown to be, well.... a load of BM.

Anyway, that's a discussion for another thread in another forum.

Thanks for your input, and though I may believe that there may have been some ET intervention in the progress and advance of human evolution, there isn't much solid evidence for it, and it relies mostly on faith and personal beliefs. That's why it's not being taught in science class.

However, if it were, I'm sure there would be death threats against the person teaching it. Which would be ironic because this would be exactly what creationists are fighting for, an alternative theory on human creation.

Thanks for response rasso-basso. I spent a whole day at meiers place, have his 1600 pages of contact notes, published by stevens, video of the metal fragmenst given to him by et, examined by top IBM scientist Marcel Vogel. We all have to decide ourselves if Billy is BS or not. I dont accept a bland statement based on some so called ufologists who claim..Billy, nah thats a fraud, its too good to be tue. If your conclusion is that BM is a fraud, then thats your right, but it sounds like you are taking someone elses word for it. As a retired airline trainng captain, i had several positive sightings, hence my delving into the BM case, Also note that 6 US investigators spent 5 years, during the contacts, trying to debunk BM .They failed. Talking of death threats, BM has had numerous actual assasination attemts, one whilst the investigators were present. Hardly worth bumping off somebody full of BS. The Investigators published 'Light Years' as the general investigation record. I feel that the BM case is the answer to our searching. After reading his 4 volume contact notes, , come back and see how you feel. And have a look at the cine film video, specially the part where the beamship touches the top of a tall fir, which is suddenly pulled towards it. 1970s was before digital editing...You do have an open mind, dont you``

[edit on 23-7-2007 by ThomasT]

Like I said, if you want to discuss BM, go somewhere else. This thread has nothing to do with him, or his theories, or anything.

And please don't make fun of my name.

Edit: Removed making fun of TT's name.

[edit on 23-7-2007 by Rasobasi420]

ThomasT
1. No we don't have to decide for ourselves whether or not we're from et's. There's simply NO evidence of it. I don't need to decide whether 4+4=8. It is based on evidence, nothing more, nothing less. There is massive amounts of evidence to support evolution as truth.

2. This thread isn't simply another creationism vs evolution discussion.

Originally posted by Rahul Buttar

Originally posted by theindependentjournal
There are even some people that subscribe to both theories, that is to say God created it and let evolution carry it out, I don't buy this cause my God aint so cruel or stupid that he can't get it right the first time...

According to the bible God didn't get it right the first time. That's why he sent the flood to kill everyone but Noah and his family. That's also why there is an Old Testament and a New Testament. Don't you think that if he had got it right the first time he would not have had to kill everyone and start over or there would not have been the need for a New Testament?

These two quotes get at a quite valid point of interpretation within Christianity. I know some people of faith will not welcome my commentary on matters of doctrine since I am decidedly atheist, but that wasn't always the case. I came within a hillbilly's heartbeat of going into the clergy.

In my experience, one of the major determiners of how tollerant and agreeable I find Christians to be is how they interpret the fact that God seems to have attended an anger management seminar somewhere between the Old and New Testaments.

The less agreeable brand of Christians think that God is still that way unless you accept Jesus, and that until you are in the church, you deserve to have flaming sulfur rained on your city and your wife turned into a pillar of salt. Furthermore, a very thin minority of them even seem to think they are doing God's work if they administer that treatment themselves.

The more agreeable brand of Christians take the view that God's old temper problem was a means to an end, and that end was establishing the need for Jesus. Now that the end is accomplished, the harsh means are obsolete.
To them, it's not that God changed his plan in response to his chosen people ignoring him. To them, God's always knew that we couldn't meet his standards, but the only way to get us to take those rules seriously enough that we would accept the sacrifice of atonement that Jesus made on our behalf was for him to enforce those rules and let us make our own sacrifices at first so that we would understand the need that Jesus met.


The second group of Christians seems much more enlightened to me, and I bet a statistical analysis would show that almost nobody who committed terrorism in the name of Christianity subscribes to that doctrine.
Their interpretation makes for a much more benevolent, loving God, and it meets reality as I have seen it in other power relationships.

Niether my father nor my Senior Drill Instructor was ever genuinely pissed off at me about anything for the most part. I never did anything that was actually designed to hurt them. I just often failed to be what it was their responsibility to make me into. And as a matter of necessity they were very convincing about seeming upset in order to make it clear that I needed to choose another direction. My dad went into a screaming fit and threw he nintendo out the window because I hit my little brother over it- the childhood equivalent of having flaming sulfur rain on everything dear to you- but I found out later that it was a calmly premeditated act, just to get a point across.


Now I don't believe in God anymore, but looking around, it's clear to me that the evolution of religious interpretations is something that our whole society has a stake in. Some may not like the idea of shaping religion to meet social needs, but if you look back through history, it has always happened, and the only way that anyone could claim that their religion today is valid in light of past evolutions is to reason that God makes his plan increasingly more clear to us as we study it, and that would argue for further development.

Until that view sticks though, there will always be violent fundamentalists in religion.

Edit by The Vagabond: Off topic post removed. I'm sorry that asking nicely didn't work.

[edit on 24-7-2007 by The Vagabond]

I'm probably going to be burned for this but you people are like grasshoppers.
SIT STILL AND STAY ON TOPIC!!!

about the attack on the professor. the attacker needs to be sent to jail not because I'm an athias(which I'm not) but because I'm Human and I believe that you can't attack someone because of their believes. EXTREMEST ARE EVIL. they attack for no reason or cause.

and about the idea that people thing evolution is the truth play my game.
your hooked up to a machine and asked to say that evolution is the truth, but if you don't believe 100%, you die.

the point is that nobody can truly 100% believe in something, yes even Christians,(me too). so we shouldn't debate beliefs and debate the world and what happenes

and if anyone wants to say that Religions are stupid try this game.
If your right, nothing happens. but if your wrong than you and anyone who believes in you will burn in Hell.

try that.

Threatening and doing are two different things. People get angry and say things, but when was the last time in America that you heard of an evolutionist being killed because of his belief? I don't believe in killing an abortionist, even though they kill for a living in extremely gruesome ways. Did you ever make a bomb threat to your school to get out of going? Chances are you know someone who did. People get disgusted at only one viewpoint being considered to be taught to young people and they may resort to childishness.

Originally posted by dixi2344


and if anyone wants to say that Religions are stupid try this game.
If your right, nothing happens. but if your wrong than you and anyone who believes in you will burn in Hell.

try that.

Speaking of grasshoppers ...

No, thanks. Pascal's Wager is hooey like all other apologist arguments.

It encourages belief without evidence. Where is your evidence of god? Can you give me evidence without saying, the world exists, or it's in the bible? No, you can't.

Other religions make the same claim as Christians, that if people don't believe in their god they'll be punished forever in some hell or another.

So which god do I have to believe in to be safe?

The only rational answer is: none.

I don't "believe" in evolution at all. It's fact. Ever changing and growing fact, but fact. And it's a fact I accept 100%. Bring on your hypothetical machine. Oh, wait, it doesn't exist. Much like something else we are discussing.

Back on topic ...

What mechanism is it that drives fundamentalists to perform acts like Korn's to please a supposedly loving god? Is this person mentally ill, or simply misguided?

Will he be tried as a terrorist? What he did was a terrorist act, according to the legal definition thereof:

the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

That's the FBI definition of terrorism. There are several more in the same vein here.

Originally posted by Clearskies
when was the last time in America that you heard of an evolutionist being killed because of his belief?

There is no such thing as an "evolutionist." There are scientists that study evolution. Is that what you mean?

And again, it's not a belief. It's a fact. With actual concrete evidence that has met the criteria of scientific testing.